By Tony Leighton

Rejuvenated Bristol City are well placed to challenge for a place in the npower Championship Play-Offs, says midfielder Marvin Elliott after the Robins put behind them their poor early season form to produce a fine run of results.

Former Millwall player Elliott, who in his 2007/08 debut season at Ashton Gate helped the Robins reach the Play-Off Final - where they lost to Hull City - has been ever-present in the current campaign, a campaign that started on a bad note as newly appointed Manager Steve Coppell sensationally resigned after just two games.

Keith Millen, who enjoyed a good spell as caretaker manager during the final two months of last season, took over from Coppell, but results proved hard to come by and City were rock-bottom in mid-October with just six points from 11 matches.

Three months and 14 games later, however, the Robins are 17th in the table and with 25 points from the last 42 on offer they are only eight points below the top six.

"It's been a good recovery after the start we made," Elliott told football-league.co.uk. "We went into the season with fresh hope and talk of promotion under Steve Coppell, with the reputation he'd got from taking Reading up to the Premier League.

"A lot of new players had come in, expectations were high and we were all looking forward to the season, but when the Manager left so quickly it was quite a shock.

"Keith was then appointed and I was happy about that. I've worked with him since I've been at the club and although it took us a while to get going after he'd taken over, I was confident that with him in charge we'd turn things around.

"We did that, but there was no magic formula to it - it was simply working hard on the training ground, Keith getting the team shape right and building confidence.

"We've now had a decent 14-match run, but there were one or two poor results in there so we've got to keep going if we want to push up the table."

One of City's poorest results, though it was in the FA Cup rather than in the Championship, came last Saturday when they lost their third round tie 3-0 at home to League 1 team Sheffield Wednesday.

They must now aim to bounce back in successive League games against two teams below themselves in the table, Middlesbrough and Crystal Palace, giving the Robins the chanced to further widen the gap between themselves and the relegation zone and hopefully close up on the sides chasing places in the Play-Offs.

"These are two very important games for us," said 26-year-old Elliott, who hit the winner when City beat Middlesbrough away from home in late October.

"I don't think we'll be favourites in either game," he added, "even though both teams are below us. On any given Saturday in the Championship any team can beat any other team, but that also means that if you're where we are in the table then you can be only three or four wins from a top six place at almost any time of the season.

"Hopefully we can string enough results together to put ourselves up there, and we're definitely capable of doing that. In the last two seasons we've not hit the heights we reached in my first year at the club, but if we can build on what we've achieved in the last two or three months we can make a challenge."

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